Homophobes. They think I want their respect.

[sibelian]

I'm listening to "Seventeen Seconds" by the Cure.

Earlier this evening I had a youtube exchange with a homophobe obsessed with other people's asses thinking the obsession was mine. "Sibelian - Pervert, nuff said" he posted after I'd asked him why he thought I wanted his respect.

I've had a couple of Youtube exchanges along these lines. "Meh, you don't get our respect! It's all you want! We will never respect your gay marriages!"

Uh? What's me being gay got to do with THEM?

What would I do with their respect? Will it feed me? Will it clothe me? Will it shelter me from harm?

Will it stand in the way of my nephew's inescapable self-confidence issues concomitant on the exit of his heterosexual father to Switzerland with a swanky new girlfriend?

Respect? What are they TALKING about?

That thing they curate on imaginary high school copybooks covered with WWF stickers? The points they give each other for the expensive NIKEs their bro-tastic buds bought for the sake of .... respect? The points they give each other for their flashy cars? The points they give each other for investment banking jobs? The points they give each other for cutting benefits to the poor? The points they give each other for proclaiming a bloodless, functionless love of an invisible god who pronounces imaginary morality in total silence? The points they give each other for cultivating petulant, carefully calibrated slivers of hatred creeping around in the dirty basements of their brains, standing erect in the background like a scorpion's sting waved aloft?

THAT respect?

Why would I want that?

OK I've just hit "A Forest" which is about a man looking for an imaginary girl in a forest.

What the fuck is it? Is it because THEY don't get any respect?

Is it because they invest so much effort and emotion in idiotic symbols that are supposed to add up to stuff that should earn respect but don't, striking dumb attitudes at each other in an attempt to coerce the pretence of something they know deep inside is only meaningful if it is something that is felt and offered freely like love, kindness or an apology? Endlessly wrangling a dull, echoing, meaningless copy of something they know somewhere inside ought to FEEL like something?

Is it because they spend their whole lives collecting the symbols, knowing that none of the damn things mean jack shit? Is there some wild little monster jumping up and down on a pile of bananas screaming for attention and always getting it but never really knowing what to do with it because they know it isn't really the same thing as respect? It's just custom? It's just habit? This is the stuff we're supposed to respect now? Beards? Tattoos? Waistcoats? Naff, blokey Yorkshire caps? NASCAR? The troops? Pf. Nobody respects the troops. Not even the troops respect the troops. The poor bastards rot on the streets and blow their brains out daily. Is that the fate of a caste that is fucking respected?

What do they even mean when they use the word? When I respect something, I feel it. Respect is a feeling.

They seem to talk about it as if it's a high score in a video game.

Is it because nobody respects heterosexuality? Is that it? They can't respect me because nobody respects them?

I think that's it.

I'm an accident of biology. The system of symbols that signify masculinity are burned into a sphere of my soul somewhere off to the left of it's usual location.

I have had to re-learn love. I have had to choose love for it's sake and understand that it is not a given. That it must be made. That
it cannot be taken for granted, that it isn't something you get. It's something you make, or it's nothing.

There isn't a gay man in the world that doesn't understand this. We reach, and if we're fortunate, there might be a man who sees us for what we are and chooses us. We are few in number. We haven't many chances. If love falls over and dies, as we age, there are fewer and fewer of us left that can make that time with us that brings forth meaningful living, to share the life with another.

We take love seriously. We have little other option. Love, the chance for sharing the life, in the gay community, is almost worshipped. Silently, but knowingly.

Does anybody take heterosexuality as seriously?

Romantic comedies. 50 shades of Grey. Divorce. Gender Wars.

Are there homophobes who do not realise that something sacred sits in their hands? Can they even see it?

Would they see it if it found them? Do they deny my capacity for love, believing it nothing more than an obsession or a fetish or a crush or an infatuation or a perversion, or whatever word they've pulled out of their de-signification lexicon today might be, because THEY have never received love? Or, worse, never given it?

"...the dream had to end.. the wish never came true... and the girl starts to sing.... seventeen seconds.... a measure of life..."

[ismnotwasm]

1. That's very well put

Wanting, fighting for and little by little gaining human rights is not the same as wishing respect from assholes who only want to withhold it.
In fact, having the absolute moral ground because Gay rights is not only a human right, but benefits the entire human race, I'd say bigots are the last persons who get honest respect-- except from other bigots.

[Leith]

2. I Respect You as an Intelligent Human Being

I don't understand why someone would be so interested in another person's sexuality unless they were looking for a sex partner.